After leaving its rivals in Uttar Pradesh, barring BJP, tongue-tied with its poll-eve announcement of 4.5% minority quota in central jobs, Congress has flashed yet another ace by wooing the community with the promise of 9% reservation, also within the existing 27% OBC quota, in state government jobs if voted to power.  The promise will be made in Congress' election manifesto for Uttar Pradesh. Salman Khurshid, who is part of the...

The move to set aside 4.5% share for minorities, including Muslims, within an existing affirmative-action system for other Backward Classes (OBCs) is legally sound, Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson K Rahman Khan has said. Rahman Khan, whose “reservation” model for Muslims in Karnataka served as a model reference point for the government’s decision, however said declaring the entire community backward based on Sachar's findings alone, as demanded by many Muslims, was not...

-The Times of India   The state chapter of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind that is planning a huge rally on January 5 at Nizam College grounds demanded on Tuesday that madrassas (religious schools) in the country be kept out of the purview of the Right to Education Act. Jamiat's state unit president Hafiz Peer Shabbir, who is also a member of the Legislative Council, told mediapersons that the government had not yet evolved a...

-The Hindu   The government's decision on a sub-quota of 4.5 per cent for minorities within the overall 27 per cent reservation for the Backward Classes promises to be the new trigger for a heated political discourse just ahead of several Assembly elections, including the all-important poll in Uttar Pradesh just a few months away. More than a decade ago, the V.P. Singh government ushered in the ‘Mandal revolution' in North India. It...

-Express News Service   The government today decided to create a 4.5 per cent sub-quota for backward minorities within the 27 per cent quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in jobs and admission to educational institutions.   The political significance of the move lies in its timing just ahead of elections in Uttar Pradesh. The sub-quota was one of the Congress’s 2009 poll promises, but it appears in the current context to be targeted...